Hierarchical data compression and computation

ABSTRACT

According to embodiments of the present invention, machines, systems, methods and computer program products for hierarchical compression of data are presented comprising creating a compression hierarchy of compression nodes, wherein each compression node is associated with a compression operation to produce compressed data. An output of any of the compression nodes may be compressed by another compression node or the same compression node. A path of one or more compression nodes is determined through said compression hierarchy based upon compression statistics to compress data, and the data is compressed by the compression nodes of the path. Various computational techniques are presented herein for manipulating the compression hierarchy to defer or reduce computation during query evaluation.

BACKGROUND

Present invention embodiments relate to compression and storage of data,and more specifically, to composing compression nodes to achievehierarchical compression of data and manipulating the compressionhierarchy to defer or reduce computation during query evaluation.

Good compression ratios are needed in order to maximize capacity ofstorage and caches as well as reduce the amount of data traffic (e.g.,input/output (I/O)) during query evaluations on storage and datanetworks. Existing compression schemes generally require fulldecompression (either to a buffer or streaming) before the data may beoperated on as part of the query evaluation. Central processing unit(CPU) time and memory bandwidth required for such decompression may belarge and costly from a computational perspective.

Other existing techniques, relative to existing compression schemes,allow fast single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) operations oncompressed values, without first decompressing the data. Such techniquesoffer a significant improvement on computational load, however, theeffect is limited since the remaining computation is still linearlyrelated to the amount of data, e.g., the number of data values, becausethe number of calculations performed increases proportionately to thenumber of values.

SUMMARY

According to embodiments of the present invention, machines, systems,methods and computer program products for hierarchical compression ofdata are presented comprising creating a compression hierarchy ofcompression nodes, wherein each compression node is associated with acompression operation to produce compressed data. An output of any ofthe compression nodes may be compressed by another compression node orthe same compression node. A path of one or more compression nodes isdetermined through said compression hierarchy to compress data basedupon compression statistics, and the data is compressed by thecompression nodes of the path.

These and other aspects, features and embodiments of the presentinvention will be understood with reference to the drawing figures andthe detailed description herein, and will be realized by way of thevarious elements and combinations particularly pointed out in theappended claims. It is to be understood that both the foregoing generaldescription and the following brief description of the drawings anddetailed description are examples and explanatory of preferredembodiments of the invention, and are not restrictive of presentinvention embodiments, as claimed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

Generally, like reference numerals in the various figures are utilizedto designate like components.

FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic illustration showing an example of a massivelyparallel database system in which information is compressed and storedin accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a procedural flow diagram of a manner of creating a hierarchyof compression nodes and selecting a compression flow in accordance withan embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a procedural flow diagram of generating predicted compressionstatistics for hierarchical compression of data in accordance with anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an example of recursively calling a compressor in accordancewith an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 5 is a procedural flow diagram showing how data may be compressedin a hierarchical manner, based on predicted statistical data, inaccordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIGS. 6A-C are procedural flow diagrams for compression for a fastcompressor engine, a slow compressor engine, and a Row ID compressorengine according to embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagrammatic illustration showing an example of a massivelyparallel database system in which compressed information is accessedduring query processing in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention.

FIG. 8 is another diagrammatic illustration showing an operator inaccordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a flow diagram of query processing, including several ways ofmanipulating the compression hierarchy to avoid computation, inaccordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is an example of manipulating the compression hierarchy, byutilizing a compression node to perform filtering according to anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is an example of manipulating the compression hierarchy,utilizing a compression node to perform a repeat operation according toan embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is an example of a diagrammatic illustration showing a unaryoperator in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram of an apparatus for generating hierarchicallycompressed data and manipulating the compression hierarchy to defer orreduce computation in accordance with an embodiment of the presentinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Present invention embodiments hierarchically compress data andmanipulate a compression hierarchy to defer or reduce computation on thecompressed data during query evaluation. This allows network capacityand bandwidth to be optimized as well as database performance to beaccelerated, as fewer resources are needed to perform desiredcomputations. Present invention embodiments allow calculations, e.g.,comparisons, to be performed without evaluating each value of compresseddata. According to present invention embodiments, performed work may bereduced by performing computations on a subset of the total number ofcompressed values to obtain a desired result.

Present invention embodiments enable a plurality of compressed outputsto be produced, with each output having a representation based upon anorder of progression through one or more nodes of a compressionhierarchy. In some embodiments, for a given set of data, an outputhaving a measure of compression that is higher than any of the othercompressed outputs may be selected from among the plurality ofcompressed outputs generated by the compression hierarchy for storage inmemory. Techniques are also presented for reducing or deferringcomputations on compressed data by manipulation of the compressionhierarchy during query evaluation.

The compression schemes of present invention embodiments are used torepresent values of at least three primitive types: integer, character,and double. Integer values may be high precision, e.g., 256 bit signedvalues. Character values may be fixed or variable-length byte strings,and double values may be binary 64 bit values. The compressiontechniques of present invention embodiments apply to each of these typesof representations. Value types are not intended to be limited tointeger, character and double data types, and may apply to additionalvalue types as well.

Present invention embodiments also apply to additional data typesincluding null values and structured database values. Null values,indicative of an unknown data value, may be handled by converting thenull values to a different representation, e.g., an independent streamof Boolean values (e.g., 1-bit integers), to be compressed. Structureddatabase types (time+timezone, interval) may be handled by convertingthe structured values to independent streams of integer values for eachpart of the data structure. In some embodiments, information correlatingthese transformed values or structures with the original values orstructures, may be stored as well.

Present invention embodiments are also not limited to a particularrepresentation of characters. For example, American Standard Code forInformation Interchange (ASCII), Extended Binary Coded DecimalInterchange Code (EBCDIC), multi-byte representations of UnicodeTransformation Formats such as UTF-8 or UTF-16, or any other suitablerepresentation of characters may be used.

The techniques of present invention embodiments generally apply to, butare not intended to be limited to, massively parallel systems in whichdata is stored in columnar format (e.g., in which columns of a datatable are stored across multiple databases or storage units or storagelocations). Databases or storage units may be local to or remote fromeach other. Storing data in columnar format may have significantadvantages in terms of achieving a higher compression ratio (as comparedto storing data in row format), as data is usually more structurallysimilar in columnar format and a higher compression ratio may beachieved. Accordingly, data is generally stored in compressed format,allowing fewer memory resources to be consumed for storage. Storing datain columnar format also has advantages in terms of data transport or I/Otime, as only those columns which are of interest for a query areretrieved from storage.

FIG. 1 shows an example of a massively parallel database system 100 inwhich data is being loaded into the system and stored. An external datasource 102 comprises data that is to be stored in any of persistentstorage units 170(1)-170(N). The data may be processed by a front endsystem 105, which may comprise a text parser 110, a partition or storageunit selector 120, and a network interface unit Tx 130 that transmitsdata over a high speed network 135 to nodes of a back end system 138.Partition or storage unit selector 120 may select one or more storageunits 170 for storing incoming data, which is compressed prior tostorage. Back end system 138 may comprise a series of blades or nodes139(1)-139(N), each blade comprising a network interface unit Rx 140 forreceiving data, a compressor 150 for compressing received data, and anI/O interface 160 for sending and receiving compressed data topersistent storage units 170. Compressor 150 may comprise one or morecompression nodes, each node capable of compressing data according to acompression algorithm. Data may be compressed in a hierarchical(recursive) manner, such that compression is applied multiple times to aset of data, wherein the type of compression selected for a subsequentround of compression is influenced or determined by the type ofcompression selected for a preceding round of compression, and the datacompressed in a subsequent round is all or a part of the output of aprevious round of compression. Output data from compressor 150 may be ina compressed data structure format, and the compressed data structureformat may be serialized or flattened into bits prior to being sent tostorage via the I/O interface 160. Hierarchical compression operationsperformed at compression nodes are described in additional detailherein.

In general, hierarchical compression must include terminal or leafnodes, where no further compression is performed on the output of thesenodes. Hierarchical compression may also include internal nodes, whereone or more components of the output require further compression. Thisfurther compression may be again hierarchical, resulting in a child nodewhich is itself an internal node, or may be simple, resulting in a childnode which is a terminal node.

The system may comprise a plurality of blades, e.g., for a systemcontaining N blades, the system may comprise network interfaces Rx140(1)-140(N), compressor 150(1)-150(N), I/O interface 160(1)-160(N),and persistent storage unit 170(1)-170(N). The environment may includeone or more blades/nodes 139, and one or more front end systems 105. Thefront end system 105 and the back end system 138 may be on the sameserver, or may be on separate servers, and may be implemented by anycombination of software and/or hardware modules.

Blades/nodes 139 and front end system 105 may be remote from each otherand communicate over a network 135. The network may be implemented byany number of any suitable communications media (e.g., wide area network(WAN), local area network (LAN), Internet, Intranet, etc.). Blades/nodes139 and front end system 105 may be local to each other, and maycommunicate via any appropriate local communication medium (e.g., localarea network (LAN), hardwire, wireless link, Intranet, etc.).

In this example, and as is common for many systems having a massivelyparallel architecture, data may be compressed according to presentinvention embodiments and stored in one or more persistent storage unitsin columnar format. For example, a table comprising many rows of datamay be divided according to a scheme among the different storageunits/blades. For example, the rows may be directed “round-robin” styleto different blades (e.g., a row of data directed to each storage unit),or “round-robin” style in batches larger than a single row, or accordingto the values found in one or more columns of each row.

The column-oriented architectures and computational techniques ofpresent invention embodiments operate on compressed data, minimizing theneed to provide access to decompressed data. Additionally, in certainsituations, computations do not require that the actual values of thedata (or that each value in a set of data) be considered, which helpsenable reduced or deferred computation on compressed data.

A manner of creating a hierarchy of compression nodes by compressor 150in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention is illustratedin FIG. 2. At operation 210, data from an external data source 102 isaccumulated. At operation 220, a determination is made as to whether asufficient amount of data to be compressed has been collected. Whensufficient data is present, the data is provided as input intocompressor 150, where the data may be recursively and/or hierarchicallycompressed using a hierarchy of compression nodes.

At operation 230, the minimum value and the maximum value of the data tobe compressed may be collected and stored. The minimum and maximumvalues may be used in conjunction with subsequent query processing todetermine whether the corresponding compressed data is relevant to aparticular evaluation (e.g., within a range of a specified parameter aspart of a query evaluation). For example, the minimum and maximum valuesmay also be used with subsequent query processing to compute the resultof an operation such as x>0; if the minimum value for a collection ofdata is 1, then the result of x>0 for every value in the collection isknown to be “True”, without looking at each value separately. Atoperation 240, statistics (e.g., predicted statistics) are collectedregarding compressing accumulated data 238 with one or more compressionoperator(s)/compression node(s). These statistics are used to decideamong compression schemes and are not retained. At operation 250, one ormore compression operator(s)/node(s) are selected based on the resultsof operation 240 and desired compression goals (e.g., smallest size,shortest compression time, etc.), and the data is compressed. Atoperation 270, compressed data is stored in one or more storage units170 (FIG. 1).

As a general example of compression, data may be provided as input intoa first compression node, producing one or more compression parametersand zero or more collections of data (e.g., compressed data). Thesecompression parameters and collections of data may later be provided asinput to a corresponding decompression node to recover the original datavalues. As an example of hierarchical or recursive compression, thesecollections of data may each individually be provided as input to asecond or subsequent compression node, which in turn may produce asecond set of compression parameters and zero or more collections ofdata. The number of values and type(s) of values in each collection ofdata may differ from the number of values and type(s) of values in theoriginal collection of data.

Both operations 240 and 250 may utilize recursive operations. Operation240 predicts the compressed size of the data by generating statisticsassociated with compressing the data. As shown in FIG. 3, for eachenabled compression operator/node, data is fed into a statisticscollector for that operator. The zero or more data outputs of thecompression operator are each first produced during statisticsgathering, and are fed recursively into another statistics collector 240at operation 425(x), possibly with some compressors disabled. Ingeneral, the results of the recursive statistics collectors 425(x) andthe parent statistics collector 415(x) are combined at statistics module430(x) to predict the size of the compressed result. Generation of suchstatistics allows a path to be chosen, at operation 250, selecting whichcompressors will be used at each level of the compression hierarchy toproduce the best result. At operation 270, the compressed data is storedin one or more storage units 170. Descriptions and examples ofcompression nodes are provided herein.

FIG. 3 shows an implementation of operation 240, showing computation ofpredicted compression statistics on the output (e.g., children) ofvarious compression nodes. Compressor 150 (see FIG. 1, FIG. 6), maypredict a compressed size and compute associated statistics (e.g.,compression time, percentage of size reduction from compression, etc.)for uncompressed data. FIG. 3 provides an example workflow for computingsuch statistics recursively. These statistics may then be used to selectone or more compression nodes for data compression during operation 250.

Uncompressed data 238 is fed into a statistics collector for eachenabled compression node. For example, incoming data 238 may be directedto a delta compression statistics collector, a bitshaved compressionstatistics collector, a Run Length Encoding (RLE) compression statisticscollector, a dictionary compression statistics collector, and so forth.

The compressor may be customized to selectively enable or disablecompression nodes, depending upon the characteristics of the data. Finetuning of the types of available compression nodes may accelerate thespeed of the compressor. In some data sets, the type of data may be wellcharacterized, e.g., from previous computations, and therefore, thetypes of compression which will be most efficient may be known. In suchcases, certain types of compression may be disabled to acceleratecompressor performance. For example, dictionary compression, which istypically computationally heavy, may be disabled for data in which suchcompression does not provide an appreciable benefit, or in contexts suchas the compression of intermediate results where the expense of goodcompression may not be worth the time spent on dictionary compression.

In general, incoming data 238 is directed to a statistics collector 415associated with a particular type of compression node. As data isprovided to 240 in a streaming manner, data is provided to each of thenodes 415(n) in a streaming manner, one value at a time. The statisticscollector 415 generates zero or more outputs 420 for a particular typeof compression (it is noted that there is no uncompressed data outputfrom the bitshaved statistics collector), and thus, nodes 415(n) performmuch of the work associated with compression by computing outputs at420(n), also in a streaming manner. The outputs are further evaluated atcompression statistics collector 425 (invoking 240 recursively).Recursion will continue until terminating at a bitshaved compressionnode. Termination may also be forced by disabling other compressionmodes according to the depth of recursion, or according to whichcompression modes have been used at higher levels of the recursion.

Statistics are collected for each evaluated compression path atoperation 430. Depending upon the order of applying various compressionschemes, many different outputs, each output associated with aparticular compression path or flow, may be generated for a given set ofdata. The statistics for each path may be compared to one another inorder to determine an optimal compression flow for a given set of data,with the optimal compression flow used to govern compression atoperation 250.

As mentioned previously, compression statistics collectors 425(n) mayperform hierarchical/recursive statistics collection. The output streamsat 420(n) are fed recursively into compression statistics collectors425(n), which are modified versions of operation 240, one value at atime. In some embodiments, only bitshaved statistics collection isenabled and the statistics module 430 reports an absolute compressedsize at 430(1). For example, the compressed size for bitshaved outputmay be reported as the number of values N times the number of bits pervalue B, plus the size of the base value V, plus a constant size C forstoring the compression parameters (e.g., number of bits in base value,number of bits B, shift amount).

In other embodiments, as shown in FIG. 3, recursive/hierarchicalcompression at compression statistics collectors 425 may exclude thetype of compression selected previously, from being selectedsubsequently. For example, for RLE encoding during compression atcompressors 425(2) and 425(3), if the data has been previouslycompressed using RLE compression, then the compressor may be configured:(1) to exclude further RLE compression in cases in which applying thesame mode of compression would not yield a further significantimprovement in compression; and (2) to exclude certain types ofcompression which would not likely yield a further significant benefitwhen combined with a previously applied compression scheme, e.g.,applying RLE to dictionary encoded data.

In still other embodiments, each of compression statistics collectors425(n) invokes 240 with a particular compression mode removed fromconsideration. After one or more rounds of recursion have been applied,the set of compression modes is reduced to bitshaved and the recursionterminates.

In other embodiments, instead of excluding a particular compression modeduring recursion, another criteria is utilized, e.g., a terminationcondition, etc. For example, the system may count the depth of recursionand disable all compression nodes except for bitshaved compression, incases where the recursion depth has been determined to reach a specifiedthreshold. At this level of termination, an absolute compressed size forbitshaved data has been computed, as noted above, and associatedstatistics with bitshaved data is returned. Accordingly, the recursive“parent” node receives a record or other indication stating thatbitshaved compression was considered, and is predicted to produce dataof a certain size.

More generally, at statistics module 430, several predicted sizes areconsidered, one for each compression scheme. The smallest predicted sizeor best compression scheme (e.g., by some other criterion, such as abias to avoid delta compression) is selected, and only the statisticsfor the smallest predicted size and associated compression scheme arereturned as the result from operation 240. For example, the datareturned to the recursive parent will indicate that RLE should be used,with a certain size. This is received at node 425 in the parent. Atstatistics module 430 in the parent, the sizes of zero or more childrenare summed, along with compression parameters necessary for selectingthis parent scheme, to produce a predicted size for the parent scheme.This recursive unwinding repeats until reaching the original call to thestatistics module. The lower-level recursive steps (the “anothercompression node”) may determine which of the higher-level compressionnodes are used (the “first compression node” above).

As a further example, RLE statistics collector 415(2) may generateoutput types of run values 420(3) and nm lengths 420(4). The RLEcompressor processes a set of uncompressed inputs, and produces twouncompressed outputs as an intermediate result. An actual array of runlengths as convenient integers, and another conventional, uncompressedarray of values are produced as outputs. The outputs are evaluated forfurther compression at statistics collectors 425(2) and 425(3) in whichRLE is not considered. Upon determination of a most compact form forthis pathway, statistics are generated for the predicted characteristicsof the data at statistics module 430(2)—the predicted size is the totalsize of the RLE compressed data.

Similarly, dictionary statistics collector 415(3) may generate outputsof values 420(5) and keys 420(6). The outputs are fed into statisticscollectors 425(4) and 425(5) to determine which recursive compressionscheme will produce the best result. In some embodiments, therecursive/hierarchical compressor may include all types of compressionnodes, such that the same type or different type of compression may beapplied multiple times to a set of data. In other embodiments, somecompression schemes may be excluded from further application based uponthe type of compression selected for a set of data. For example, if thedata has been previously compressed using dictionary compression, thenthe recursive compressor may be configured to exclude dictionarycompression. In some embodiments, applying RLE compression to thedictionary values output 420(5) may be excluded because these values areknown to be distinct values; RLE compression may still be enabled forthe dictionary keys output 420(6), since the keys may include repeateddata. Statistics are combined at operation 430(4). In a preferredembodiment, the dictionary “values” is generally always compressed usingthe bitshaved compressor if the data type is integer data, in order tomake it easier to perform random access into the compressed dictionarywhen processing the data at a subsequent point in time. Otherwise, e.g.,for varchar data, the dictionary is generally decompressed into a moreconvenient representation, e.g., an array of uncompressed values, whenusing the dictionary-compressed data at a subsequent point in time.

Likewise, delta statistics collector 415(4) may generate output types ofuncompressed deltas at 420(7). The outputs may be evaluated atstatistics collector 425(6) to determine which type of recursivecompression should be applied. Statistics from 425(6) are combined withstatistics from 415(4), e.g., a base output, at operation 430(5) topredict the resulting compressed size using delta compression.

Bitshaved statistics collector 415(1) generates no outputs for furtherconsideration. The bitshaved statistics collected at 415(1) aresufficient to compute the predicted size of the compressed data atoperation 430(1). Bitshaved is generally not subject to furthercompression.

The return result after recursive unwinding may be a structureindicating, e.g., that RLE should be used, with run values dictionarycompressed, with dictionary keys bitshaved 5 bits each and dictionaryvalues bitshaved 12 bits each, and (back at the RLE level) run lengthsbitshaved as well at 3 bits each. Such a structure may look like:RLE(dictionary(bitshaved 12 bits, bitshaved 5 bits), bitshaved 3 bits).

As indicated above, the statistics computation is made for eachcompression node type, and indicates which nodes should be used forcompressing data. The compressor then honors these decisions atoperation 250 to produce a compressed structure that may be serializedto a sequence of bits, the final compressed form.

The outputs of multiple statistics collection nodes may be combined whendetermining total predicted compression size at 430. For example, fordictionary compression, then the predicted size may be determined basedupon a combined predicted size of values and keys, plus the predictedsize of the dictionary compression header.

Various compression nodes are understood to fall within the scope ofpresent invention embodiments. Additional types of compression nodes, inaddition to those shown in FIG. 3, are discussed herein. Descriptionsand examples of different types of compression nodes are provided asfollows.

Bitshaved compression, usually used as a terminus for every type of datacompression, e.g., varchar data uses bitshaved for each character value,represents values as offsets relative to a base value, storing a basevalue of a sequence (e.g., a lowest value, minimum value, zero, etc.)and the difference between the base value and another value of thesequence. If the base value is the minimum value, all offsets will bepositive, and no sign bit will be required per value. Offsets arepreferably selected according to the minimum number of bits required forthe largest offset. Although additional bits are allowed, minimizing thenumber of bits is preferred for on-disk storage.

Bitshaved representation also allows a scale factor to be applied to theoffset. The scale factor may be a power of 2, a power of 10, or anarbitrary multiplicand. This is useful, e.g., regarding timestamp data,which often has many trailing zeros in a decimal representation.

For a sequence of input values which is constant, a bitshaved primitivecompression node may be used to compress the sequence. For example, asequence of input values: 2, 2, 2, 2, 2 may be encoded using bitshavedcompression as bitshaved (base=2, scale=0, bits per value=0,bits=(0,0,0,0,0)).

For a sequence of input values differing by a variable amount, bitshavedcompression may also be suitable for compressing the sequence. Forexample, a sequence of input values: 103, 98, 104, 97, and 98 may beencoded using a bitshaved primitive compression node asbitshaved(base=97, scale=0, bits per value=3, bits=(6,1,7,0,1)).

Another example of a compression node is RLE (Run Iength Encoding). RLEis generally applied to a sequence of integers and has two children: aset of values and corresponding lengths. For each value, the number oftimes that the value repeats in a sequence is stored as length n. Anexample of applying RLE compression to the sequence of input values: 2,2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 8, 8, 9 using a RLE compression node isrle(values=(2,3,4,5,8,9), lengths=(3,1,3,1,2,1)). Thus, because thevalue ‘2’ repeats three times, a corresponding length of ‘3’ is storedas well. Additionally, RLE usually produces an output sequence that isshorter than the input sequence (the sequence to be compressed), andonly contains values appearing in the sequence. However duringsubsequent optimized processing, RLE encoded data may be produced thathas some lengths=0, and thus, may have values which do not appear in thesequence being represented.

Another example of a compression node is dictionary encoding. Dictionaryencoding also has two children: a set of values, usually distinct fromeach other, as well as a corresponding set of keys, which are indicesinto the values. Additionally, dictionary encoding usually produces aset of dictionary values that is smaller than the input sequence (thesequence to be compressed), and generally only contains values appearingin the sequence. For uncompressed input data, each of theseaforementioned conditions will usually apply. During compression, theorder of the dictionary entries may be arbitrary, and therefore, theentries may be sorted as indicated in a dictionary coding header, toimprove compression of the values and simplify certain types ofcomputations performed on the values. Dictionary compression may beapplied to values of any type.

For example, a sequence of input values:“Y”,“Y”,“Y”,“N”,“N”,“Y”,“Y”,“Y”,“N” may be encoded using dictionaryencoding compression as dict(sorted=ascending, values=(“N”,“Y”),keys=(1,1,1,0,0,1,1,1,0)). In this example, “N” has a correspondingindex of ‘0’, and “Y” has a corresponding index of ‘1’. For valueshaving lengthy character descriptions (e.g., city names, departmentnames, etc.) a considerable benefit may be achieved with dictionarycompression, as the resources needed to represent each value along withan associated index are much smaller than the resources needed torepresent every full length occurrence of the value.

In some embodiments, the output of the dictionary encoding compressionnode may be further compressed, using other compression primitives,e.g., keys may be further compressed using bitshaving or RLE byoperation 240.

Another example of a compression node is delta encoding compressionnode. Delta encoding may be used to compress a sequence of input values,usually numeric, e.g., sequence numbers or row identifiers. Deltaencoding stores the first value of a series of input values as a basevalue and the difference between each pair of adjacent values.

Delta encoding compression may be used to compress a sequence of inputvalues increasing by a constant amount. For example, a sequence of inputvalues: 17, 19, 21, 23, 25 and 27 may be encoded using delta encodingcompression as delta(base=17, deltas=(2,2,2,2,2)). In this example, thenumber ‘17’ was selected as the base value, and the difference betweenthe base value and the next value of ‘19’, may be represented as ‘2’.Likewise, the difference between the value of ‘19’ and the nextsuccessive value of ‘21’ may also be represented as ‘2’. Once the deltasare compressed, this compression scheme utilizes fewer memory resourcesthan the original sequence of input values.

As another example, for a sequence of input values increasing by avariable amount, a delta encoding compression node may also be suitablefor compressing the sequence. For example, a sequence of input values:100, 203, 301, 405, 502 and 600 may be encoded as delta(base=100,deltas=(103,98,104,97,98)). This scheme also utilizes fewer memoryresources than the original sequence of input values once the deltas arecompressed.

It should also be noted that this example utilizes a sequence which maybe further compressed using bitshaved compression. As disclosed herein,compression primitives may be applied recursively/hierarchically, andthus, the output of a first compression node may be further compressedusing the same or a second compression node. Sequence: 103, 98, 104, 97,98 may be further compressed as bitshaved(base=97, scale=0, bits pervalue=3, bits=(6,1,7,0,1)).

Another example of a compression node is fixchar compression node.Fixchar compression, generally applied to a fixed byte representation ofcharacters, converts each string value into an integer. Fixchar allowsan integer representation of character values, including all-digitcharacter values. Fixchar may be utilized when string lengths areconstant and less than the supported maximum length of the integer, ormay have an associated lengths child.

For example, a sequence of string input values: “A3Z1”, “A3Z2”, “A3Z9”may be encoded using fixchar compression. Each string is considered as asequence of bytes in memory. This sequence of bytes is then interpretedas a base-256 integer. In some embodiments, conversion from character tointeger values treats the character value as a “big endian” integer sothat the resulting integers sort in the same order as the originalstrings under memory-order sorting. Another embodiment first convertsthe character value to a collation form for a specific lexicographicordering locale, and then converts the collation form to an integer.Thus, “A3Z1”, “A3Z2”, “A3Z9” may be represented as fixchar(length=4,bits=(1093884465, 93884466, 93884473)).

It is noted that this sequence of integers may be further compressedusing other compression nodes, e.g., bitshaved compression or deltacompression, which may operate on integer data according to presentinvention embodiments.

Although not shown in this example, in other representations, such as6-byte character values, character values may also include trailingspaces. In such a case, if all values have trailing spaces, then afterconversion to integers, subtraction of the minimum integer value fromthe bitshaved data may cause trailing spaces to become trailing zerobytes, which are then compressed by applying a scale factor.

Yet another example of a compression node is the varchar compressionnode, which is typically also used to compress character data, and hastwo children, bytes and lengths. Individual characters are converted toan ASCII or equivalent representation and treated as 8-bit integers.Multi-byte characters may be handled by encoding as a sequence ofsmaller values (as in UTF-8 or UTF-16), with each set of smaller valuestreated as an integer, or compressed directly with each character valuegenerally treated as a wider integer value. Varchar may have anassociated lengths child to represent the length of the string, whichmay be variable. According to present invention embodiments, the integerrepresentation as well as the lengths child (lengths of the characterstrings) may be further compressed using other compression nodes, e.g.,bitshaved compression or other compression schemes such asLempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW).

The double compression node, whose child contains the integer binary 64representation of the double value, is similar to fixchar compression.The bits of a double value are either interpreted directly as a 64-bitinteger to be compressed, e.g., by RLE, dictionary, or bitshavedcompression, or are first converted to a collation form suitable forinteger comparisons. A collation form for an IEEE-754 binary32 orbinary64 floating point value may be obtained by the algorithm: iffloat>=0; then output=reinterpret float as integer; elseoutput=minus(reinterpret minus(float) as integer).

FIG. 4 shows an example of recursively calling a compressor, accordingto present invention embodiments. At 411, a RLE statistics collector isinitially selected at 415(2) (FIG. 3). At 412, recursive compressor iscalled at 425 and dictionary compression is selected. At 413, recursivecompressor 420 is called at 425, and delta compression is selected. At414, recursive compression 420 is called at 425 and bitshavedcompression is selected. Once bitshaved compression is selected,operations involving recursively calling 420 end.

FIG. 5 shows an example of a compression engine selecting a compressionnode for uncompressed data, based upon predicted compressed sizes andassociated statistics or other specified criteria from operation 240. Atoperation 250, uncompressed data along with compression statistics andpredicted sizes are provided to a compression engine. Based upon thepredicted sizes and associated statistics, a compression node orcompression flow comprising multiple compression nodes that bestcompress the data is selected. Depending on whether the data is integer,character, double, etc., some compression nodes will be more efficientat compressing a particular type of data than other types of compressionnodes. For example, if the best type of compression is determined to bedelta compression, then a delta compression node and associatedcompression flow will be selected at operation 510(4). If the best typeof compression is determined to be bitshaved, then a bitshavedcompression node and associated compression flow will be selected atoperation 510(1), and so forth for RLE flow at operation 510(2) anddictionary flow at operation 510(3). It is noted that operationsinvolving the bitshaved pathway are distinct from the remainingpathways. In general, the bitshaved data structure is produced by (1)subtracting the minimum value from each value, (2) either shifting bythe number of bits determined by the bitwise statistics or scaling bythe scale factor determined by the greatest-common-divisor of thedifferences between values, (3) encoding using only the number of bitsnecessary for the difference (e.g., maximum value−minimum value), and(4) packing these n-bit encoded values together in a bit array. Incontrast, the other pathways include operations at 520(x), which arerecursive compressor calls.

Again, it is understood that not all of the types of compressiondiscussed herein are shown, but are understood to fall within the scopeof present invention embodiments. Once a compression node is selected,the data is processed according to a particular compression flow, asshown at operations 520(2)-520(4), in a hierarchical or recursivemanner, and packaged into a data structure for storage at operations530(1)-530(4).

As a more specific example, at operation 510(2), RLE is selected as anoptimal compression flow and the uncompressed data is parsed into twooutput types: lengths and values. At operation 520(2), each data type(lengths and values) is compressed according to the selected optimalflow determined from associated statistics and predicted sizes byrecursive invocations of operation 250, one invocation for each oflengths and values. At operation 530(2), the two sets of compressed dataare packaged into a data structure that is the output of module 250. Theother compression flows progress through a similar series of actions.

It is understood that present invention embodiments encompass not onlythe specific compression nodes described in reference to FIG. 5, butalso, compression nodes associated with other types of compression aswell.

FIGS. 6A-C show examples of different workflows for compression engines:(1) a fast compression engine (top panel) in which a particularcomputationally intensive type of compression (i.e. dictionarycompression) is disabled, (2) a slow compression engine (bottom panel)in which statistics are collected on all compression nodes, and (3) aRow ID compressor engine. At operation 230, uncompressed data is fedinto the compression engine. At operations 240-242, statistics arecollected on compression nodes. Dictionary compression may be enabled ordisabled, depending upon the characteristics of the data. For the fastcompressor at 240 (FIG. 6A), dictionary compression is disabled, suchthat statistics are collected without dictionary compression. For theslow compressor at 241 (FIG. 6B), dictionary compression is enabled,such that statistics are collected for all compression types. Atoperation 520, data is compressed based upon statistics obtained fromtrying different compression nodes. At operation 530, a compressed datastructure is generated based upon the type(s) of compression utilized atoperation 520.

In still other embodiments, as shown at FIG. 6C, some compression modesmay be disabled based on table schema information or data typeinformation. For example, delta compressed data does not enable manycompressed-computation optimizations. Therefore, delta compression isgenerally applied only to columns that are not often used incomputations, e.g., an internal ROW ID column, which is generallysequential and well-compressed using delta compression. In this case, acompressor engine at 242 that enables Delta compression on a ROW IDcolumn would be selected and statistics collected at 242, while mostother compressors would not enable delta compression.

The techniques presented herein do not restrict the order of thecompression hierarchy. While the compressor may limit itself to certainhierarchies and depths, dynamically, at run-time, a representation maybe obtained from a particular progression through a sequence ofcompression nodes, such as:RLE(RLE(RLE(fixchar(bitshaved),bitshaved),bitshaved),dictionary(bitshaved,bitshaved)).

The criterion for choosing the best encoding at 510 may more complexthan simple compressed size. For example, in some embodiments, a ‘best’representation may be determined which penalizes certain compressionmodes, e.g., delta compression, which is computationally expensive, byproviding a computational cutoff of computing a compressed result thatis at least half the size of the next best alternative. In otherembodiments, a compression scheme with fewer levels of recursion may bepreferred or as long as this is within a factor of 1.01 (or some otherfactor) of the next best alternative.

FIG. 7 shows an illustration of query processing to identify and extractdata that has been stored in compressed format in one or more persistentstorage unit(s) 170. Upon receiving query parameters from a user/host,the query is evaluated to identify and retrieve relevant data stored incompressed format in persistent storage unit 170(1). The flow of thedata from the storage unit 170(1) through node 139(1) and the front endsystem 105 are shown. It is understood that multiple storage units aswell as multiple nodes may be present. For simplicity, only one storageunit and node are shown.

Data from persistent storage unit 170(1) progresses through node 139(1),and in particular, through I/O module 160(1), filter module 855(1) andtransmission module Tx 835(1) for transmitting data to front end system105. Filter module 855(1) may contain one or more operators 856. Ageneric representation of operators 856 is shown at node 139(1) as wellas the front end system 105. Front end system 105 comprises a receivingmodule Rx 845(1) for receiving data from node 139(1), an operator 856,and an external result consumer container 860 that is used to packageinformation to be provided/displayed to a consumer. Although node 139(1)and front end system 105 could perform any operation associated withoperator 856, in practice, operators which govern access to persistentstorage will more likely be utilized on node 139(1) and operatorsgoverning returning data to an external consumer will more likely beutilized on front end system 105. Accordingly, operators may interactwith data in a different manner on the front end and the back end.

Operator 856 may include many different types of functions, includingbut not limited to, decompressing data obtained from persistent storage,filtering decompressed data based upon query parameters, performing joinor aggregation operations, performing queries or transformations oncompressed data (without first decompressing the data) and passing datarelevant to a query to the front end system. Operator 856 may decompressdata that has been stored in compressed format by any of the compressionnodes according to present invention embodiments. Data 170(1) may beevaluated to determine data of relevance to the query, wherein the datais evaluated in compressed format. Once relevant data has beenidentified, the data may be filtered and provided to front endsystem/host 105 for display to a user. Decompression may occur at anypoint in this sequence, including immediately before display to theuser. In general, decompression is deferred for as long as possible, inorder to reduce the amount of computation required to manipulate andtransport the data.

FIG. 8 shows a more detailed representation of an operator used forquery processing in which data is first decompressed, operated upon, andthen recompressed. This figure represents a conventional manner ofperforming computations on compressed data, specifically in that data isdecompressed before it is operated upon. While present inventionembodiments encompass optimized situations in which data is computedupon while still being in compressed format, in scenarios in which suchoptimizations to compute on compressed data may not be applicable, datamay still be processed in response to query evaluation using thegeneralized operator structure of FIG. 8.

Inputs N₀ values 910(1) and N₁ values 910(2) represent inputs into anoperator block 856, where N₀ and N₁ represent a number of values. Theseinputs include cases in which N₀ and N₁ are equal to one another as wellas cases in which N₀ and N₁ are not equal to one another. At operation920, input values still in compressed format are enumerated (ordecompressed). At operation 930, computations are performed on thedecompressed values, generating M output values in response to the queryparameters. At operation 940, the output values are recompressed andprovided as output (M output values) at operation 950. Enumeration ismeant to indicate that all of the decompressed values may not beproduced at once, and in particular, may not ever all be present inuncompressed form at the same time.

Present invention embodiments may utilize computational techniques toachieve greater efficiency in retrieving data that has beenhierarchically compressed. Several examples of such techniques aredescribed in additional detail below. Such techniques allow a portion ofthe compressed data to be subjected to subsequent analysis, rather thanperforming computations on a larger (or the entire) compressed data set.These computations may be performed at runtime, or alternatively, bestored for subsequent retrieval. Operations disclosed herein allowmanipulation of the compression hierarchy to isolate desired data. Ingeneral, the computational work performed is proportional to thecompressed size of the data.

In certain cases, compression nodes of present invention embodiments maybe used to defer or postpone computational work. For example, certaindata flow operations such as filtering, repeating and synthesizing adictionary may be performed using the compression nodes of presentinvention embodiments.

FIG. 9 shows an example of a processing flow, e.g., for queryprocessing, that may reduce or defer computational work according topresent invention embodiments. Data from join operations or othersimilar operations may include data having a form of repeat counts andvalues, which are provided as inputs into the processing flow.Specifically, inputs to operator 1000 may include: (1) data of any typehaving any compression format (N data values) at input 1020; and (2)corresponding repeat counts that are 0, 1, or higher (N counts) at input1010. In cases in which all counts are zero at operation 1030, theoutput will be empty, and therefore, computation may be terminated andan empty output returned at operation 1035. In cases in which all countsare 1 at operation 1040, the original values will be returned atoperation 1045. Both of these cases may be detected with littlecomputation, as compressed repeat counts include minimum and maximumvalues, and from these, determination of a constant value is trivial. Incertain cases, computational work may be performed using a particularcompression node as follows.

The operation of summing a sequence of integers, or computing a “sum ofcounts” at operation 1050, is an important metriciprimitive and isheavily optimized—for each compression type, specialized techniques maybe used for summing data based on the corresponding compression type.For example, if a count input is a sequence of numbers, e.g., [1, 2, 1,1, 2], and the corresponding values are [a,b,c,d,e], then the output islogically the sequence of values [a,b,b,c,d,e,e]. The length of thissequence is 7, which is exactly 1+2+1+1+2, or the sum of [1, 2, 1, 1,2], also referred to as the “sum of counts”. For bitshaved data with Nvalues, base value B, scale factor S, and K bits per value, the sum is(N*B+(sum of the N values of K bits each))*S. If K is 0, this simplifiesto return N*B*S. If K is 1, as will often be the case for repeat countswhich are all 0 or 1, then the sum of N values of K bits each is abitvector population count operation, which is supported in hardware. Inother embodiments, if the counts are represented as a dictionary, thenthe sum is computed by constructing a histogram of dictionary keys, thencomputing the dot product of the histogram with the dictionary itself.In still other embodiments, if the counts are represented as RLE, thenthe sum is the dot product of the run lengths and the values.

If the sum of counts is very large, then representing the result of a“repeat” operation as anything other than RLE-compressed may beinefficient. In practice, using a threshold of 1.5N seems to work well.Similarly, if the maximum count value is greater than 2, then downstreamoperations may gain significant efficiency by leaving the data in RLEform. At operation 1055, RLE compression may be selected if Max Count(the maximum value found in the repeat counts input) is greater than 2or if the Sum of Counts is greater than 1.5N. In this case, the outputwill be returned in the form of RLE compressed data, as shown atoperation 1060, by synthesizing a RLE compression node whose repeatcount child is the original repeat count input 1010, and whose valueschild is the original value input 1020. RLE compression nodes may beuseful for performing filtering operations and/or repeating operationsas part of data flow operations during query evaluations. Examples ofsuch operations are provided herein.

In the event that RLE is not selected, the data is evaluated todetermine whether it is dictionary coded at operation 1062. In thiscase, if dictionary compression is selected, the output may be returnedin the form of dictionary coded data, as shown at operation 1065. Thedictionary values are unchanged from the dictionary values present inthe input 1020. The dictionary keys are the original dictionary keyspresent in the input 1020, but repeated according to the repeat countsinput 1010. Computation on the dictionary keys may be performed byrecursively invoking the repeat operator 1000. Other encoding schemes,e.g., single-child encoding schemes and fixchar encoding schemes, etc.may be optimized as well.

If none of these optimized schemes apply, then the data may bedecompressed or enumerated at operation 1070. At operation 1080, theenumerated values and counts are combined to produce a new uncompressedsequence of values representing the correct output of the repeatoperation: values with a corresponding count of 0 are elided, valueswith a corresponding count of 1 are included once, and values with acorresponding count greater than one appear the number of timescorresponding to the count. This new sequence of uncompressed valuescomputed at 1080 has length equal to the “sum of counts”, computed at1050. This sequence may be shorter or longer than the original sequence,or have the same length. At operation 1090, this new sequence of valuesmay be recompressed using a fast compression engine, to generate“repeated values”, values which are the output of the repeat operator,as output at operation 1095. It is noted that incoming data to thisoperator and outgoing data from this operator are both in compressedformat.

Referring to FIG. 10, an example is shown of a filtering technique usinga RLE compression node. Filtering allows a subset of data to be isolatedfor subsequent analysis, thereby reducing computational workload. Forexample, some data flow operations may effectively apply a bitmask to adatastream, discarding some values deemed not to be of interest. Thistype of filtering may be performed using the repeat operator illustratedin FIG. 10. In such operations, the repeat count is 0 or 1 (i.e. thebitmask). As an example of the result of using such a filteringtechnique, a sequence of input values may be masked using a binaryoperation to isolate data of relevance. Given RLE compressed input datarle(values=(1, 5, 2, 3, 5), lengths=(3,1,4,2,3)) at flow 1110 and abinary (or Boolean) bitmask at flow 1120, e.g.,(1,1,1,0,1,1,0,0,1,1,0,1,1), a filter operator 1125 may be utilized toperform a filtering operation, arriving at the output rle(rle(values=(1,5, 2, 3, 5), lengths=(3,1,4,2,3,)),lengths=(1,1,1,0,1,1,0,0,1,1,0,1,1)), as shown at flow 1130. Thiscorresponds to the output produced at 1060 in FIG. 10. Thus, byutilizing a filter operator, computational load may be deferred.Construction of the new filtering node usually takes a small, constantamount of computational time, while actually decompressing andenumerating values takes an amount of computational time proportional tothe number of values. Since the number of values usually includesthousands of values (or more), a significant amount of computationaltime may be needed to decompress and enumerate values. Moreover, othersubsequent operations may cause this entire set of values to be ignoredor discarded, e.g., during evaluation of a boolean expression whereanother branch of the expression is constant “True” or constant “False”.In this case, it is desirable to postpone computational work, e.g., thework of nodes 1070, 1080, 1090 in FIG. 9, to compute the filteredresult, as this computation need not be performed at all in some cases.

Another computational technique useful for referring or reducingcomputation load is utilizing RLE compression nodes to perform repeatingoperations. Some data flow operations, such as join processing, mayapply a repeat count to each value. Join processing may perform a lookupoperation on each value in an associative array to find 0, 1, or moreresults for each lookup operation. The output of the lookup operationreturns two sets of results: the number of potential results and thevalue stored in the associative array for each result. The number ofpotential results indicates how many times each input row needs to berepeated in order to produce the correct set of candidate join results.This repeat operation may be implemented using repeat operator 1225.When the condition 1055 indicates that an RLE compression node isappropriate, the output of the repeat operator is RLE compression dataas in 1060, with the repeat input used as the lengths child, and thedata input used as the values child.

FIG. 11 provides an example of performing a repeat operation byutilizing a repeat operator 1225. Input values 1210 are provided as“foo”, “bar”, “baz”. During join processing, each of these values “foo”,“bar”, “baz” are looked up in an associative array to return the numberof repeat counts 1220 for each value, e.g., 3, 0, 1. An RLE compressionnode may be used to perform a repeat operation, aligning the values withtheir respective repeat counts. Specifically, given values “foo”, “bar”,“baz” 1210 and repeat counts (3, 0, 1) 1220, an RLE compression node maybe utilized to produce an output correlating to each input with itsrespective count, as shown at flow 1230 as rle(values=(“foo”, “bar”,“baz”), lengths=(3, 0, 1)). From a computational workload perspective,construction of an RLE compression node to perform a repeat operation isalmost free. As an alternative, the values resulting from the joinoperation could first be enumerated, fully repeated, and passed to acompressor, which is an expensive operation, as shown in FIG. 9.

A more-refined version of this optimization may involve cases in whichthe resulting unit of compressed data could be smaller if the repeatcounts were actually applied. For example, consider a filteringoperation where the repeat counts are mostly 0. This can occur in aquery computation where a predicate is usually false, e.g., a filter“ID=1029375623” where the ID is a unique key. This gives rise to anotherthreshold consideration. If the sum of counts in a repeat operation issignificantly smaller than the original count N, then it iscomputationally more efficient to enumerate the actual values andrecompress the result, rather than using a computational trick asdisclosed herein, e.g., in FIGS. 10 and 11.

As shown in FIG. 12, another computational technique useful formanipulation of hierarchically compressed data and deferred or reducedcomputational load is query processing with synthesizing a dictionary.This technique allows computationally expensive calculations to beperformed a fewer number of times. For example, if a unary operator 1325(or binary with one input constant) has data, which is in bitshaved formwith a small number N of bits (e.g., a sequence of 4096 values,bitshaved to 2 bits each, or any number less than 12 bits each) as shownat flow 1310, then the result at flow 1330, for each of the 4 possible2-bit input bit patterns, can be represented by generating a dictionarywith 2^(N) entries at 1320, and by using the original data as keys in anew dictionary compression node 1330.

The input unit becomes the “keys” child of a dictionary node. As anotherexample, a similar effect is possible if the inputs to a binaryoperation are both bitshaved with a small number of bits N and M;corresponding bitshaved values may be combined to produce N+M bit keysinto a dictionary with 2^(N+M) entries or when combining a dictionarycompressed stream with a bitshaved stream. For instance, suppose theinput bitshaved values have N bits, and bit pattern ‘0’ represents thevalue x₀, bit pattern ‘1’ represents the value x₁, etc. as shown at1410. Then, the values part of the resulting dictionary compression nodeat 1430 is f(x₀), f(x₁), etc., when passed through a simple compressorat 1420.

This technique may be applied to any single-input operator, includingbinary operators in which one input is constant. As in FIG. 10, there isa run-time decision made for each chunk of input, as to whether thistechnique is efficient to use for computing a result.

Dictionary-based optimization techniques, as disclosed herein, may beutilized to perform computations for each distinct combination, which issignificantly less than the total number of values, e.g., string values.A benefit of this approach is that computationally expensive operationsare performed a lower number of times. Because the result is maintainedin a more compact compressed form, down-stream operations will also beable to perform fewer computations.

Refinements for the dictionary scheme include: (a) if the base isnon-zero in the bitshaved chunk, a new bitshaved chunk with base equalto 0 will be produced (allowing the values to be used as dictionarykeys), (b) if the scale is not 1 in the bitshaved chunk, the scale willbe converted to 1 (allowing the bitshaved values to be used asdictionary keys), and (c) if the values in the bitshaved chunk have arange smaller than 2^(N) (this may be determined because a min and a maxvalue are recorded), a smaller number of dictionary values as comparedto the total number of dictionary values (2^(N)) will need to bepopulated.

As an example, suppose the input bitshaved chunk is bitshaved(base=10,bits per value=2, max=2, scale=2, values=(0,1,2,0,2,2, 1,1,1)). Thisrepresents the uncompressed sequence [10, 12, 14, 10, 14, 14, 12, 12,12]. With this running example, the desired output is the sequence[‘status-10’, ‘status-12’, ‘status-14’, ‘status-10’, ‘status-14’,‘status-14’, ‘status-12’, ‘status-12’, ‘status-12’]. To produce thisoutput, a dictionary is generated. The basic optimization techniquesuggests that the dictionary contain the values ‘status-10’,‘status-12’, ‘status-14’, and ‘status-16’, corresponding to the fourpossible values representable in two bits. Based on technique (c), theoutput value ‘status-16’ does not need to be computed, nor included inthe dictionary, because the actual range of the keys in the input doesnot include the bit pattern ‘3’, which corresponds to the value ‘16’ andwould produce the output ‘status-16’. Techniques (a) and (b) have to dowith the keys in the output dictionary node. The output of the techniqueis the compression node dictionary(values=[‘status-10’, ‘status-12’,‘status-14’], keys=bitshaved(base=0, scale=1, bits per value=2,values=(0,1,2,0,2,2,1,1,1)). Note that the values are exactly as in theinput bitshaved chunk. By applying (a), the base is 0, and by applying(b) the scale is 1; these are both modified versus the input. Withoutthis modification, dictionary entries with numbers 10, 12, and 14 wouldbe selected, which do not exist.

FIG. 13 illustrates an example block diagram of a system 139, configuredto perform the techniques presented herein. System 139 may include anetwork interface unit 1510, a processor 1520, and a memory 1530. Thenetwork interface unit 1510 is configured to receive and send data overa network. I/O module 1515 is configured to send and receive compresseddata and to communicate with storage modules 170.

The processor 1520 may be embodied by one or more microprocessors ormicrocontrollers, and executes software instructions stored in memory1530 for hierarchical compression and computational deferral at 1535 andat predicted statistics logic 1546, as shown in FIGS. 1-12.

It is noted that blades/nodes 139 (of backend system 138) and front endsystem 105 may be implemented by any conventional or other computersystems preferably equipped with a display or monitor, a base (e.g.,including at least one processor 1520, one or more memories 1530 and/orinternal or external network interfaces or communications devices 1510(e.g., modem, network cards, etc.)), optional input devices (e.g., akeyboard, mouse or other input device), and any commercially availableand custom software (e.g., server/communications software,browser/interface software, compression and other modules, etc.).

The hierarchical compression and recursion comparison logic andpredicted statistics logic may include one or more modules or units toperform the various functions of present invention embodiments describedabove. The various modules (e.g., hierarchical compression and recursioncompression logic 1535, predicted compression statistics logic 1546,etc.) may be implemented by any combination of any quantity of softwareand/or hardware modules or units, and may reside within memory 1530 ofthe back end system for execution by processor 1520.

It will be appreciated that the embodiments described above andillustrated in the drawings represent only a few of the many ways ofimplementing embodiments for hierarchical data compression.

The environment of the present invention embodiments may include anynumber of computer or other processing systems (e.g., client or end-usersystems, server systems, etc.) and databases or other repositoriesarranged in any desired fashion, where the present invention embodimentsmay be applied to any desired type of computing environment (e.g., cloudcomputing, client-server, network computing, mainframe, stand-alonesystems, etc.). The computer or other processing systems employed by thepresent invention embodiments may be implemented by any number of anypersonal or other type of computer or processing system (e.g., desktop,laptop, PDA, mobile devices, etc.), and may include any commerciallyavailable operating system and any combination of commercially availableand custom software (e.g., browser software, communications software,server software, etc.). These systems may include any types of monitorsand input devices (e.g., keyboard, mouse, voice recognition, etc.) toenter and/or view information.

It is to be understood that the software (e.g., software forhierarchical compression and recursion compression logic 1535, predictedcompression statistics logic 1546, etc.) of the present inventionembodiments may be implemented in any desired computer language andcould be developed by one of ordinary skill in the computer arts basedon the functional descriptions contained in the specification and flowcharts illustrated in the drawings. Further, any references herein ofsoftware performing various functions generally refer to computersystems or processors performing those functions under software control.The computer systems of the present invention embodiments mayalternatively be implemented by any type of hardware and/or otherprocessing circuitry. The various functions of the computer or otherprocessing systems may be distributed in any manner among any number ofsoftware and/or hardware modules or units, processing or computersystems and/or circuitry, where the computer or processing systems maybe disposed locally or remotely of each other and communicate via anysuitable communications medium (e.g., LAN, WAN, Intranet, Internet,hardwire, modem connection, wireless, etc.). For example, the functionsof the present invention embodiments may be distributed in any manneramong the various end-user/client and server systems, and/or any otherintermediary processing devices. The software and/or algorithmsdescribed above and illustrated in the flow charts may be modified inany manner that accomplishes the functions described herein. Inaddition, the functions in the flow charts or description may beperformed in any order that accomplishes a desired operation.

The software of the present invention embodiments (e.g., hierarchicalcompression and recursion compression logic 1535, predicted compressionstatistics logic 1546, etc.) may be available on a non-transitorycomputer useable medium (e.g., magnetic or optical mediums,magneto-optic mediums, floppy diskettes, CD-ROM, DVD, memory devices,etc.) of a stationary or portable program product apparatus or devicefor use with stand-alone systems or systems connected by a network orother communications medium.

The communication network may be implemented by any number of any typeof communications network (e.g., LAN, WAN, Internet, Intranet, VPN,etc.). The computer or other processing systems of the present inventionembodiments may include any conventional or other communications devicesto communicate over the network via any conventional or other protocols.The computer or other processing systems may utilize any type ofconnection (e.g., wired, wireless, etc.) for access to the network.Local communication media may be implemented by any suitablecommunication media (e.g., local area network (LAN), hardwire, wirelesslink, Intranet, etc.).

The system may employ any number of any conventional or other databases,data stores or storage structures (e.g., files, databases, datastructures, data or other repositories, etc.) to store information(e.g., predicted compression statistics, compressed data, etc.). Thedatabase system may be implemented by any number of any conventional orother databases, data stores or storage structures (e.g., files,databases, data structures, data or other repositories, etc.) to storeinformation (e.g., predicted compression statistics, compressed data,etc.). The database system may be included within or coupled to theserver and/or client systems. The database systems and/or storagestructures may be remote from or local to the computer or otherprocessing systems, and may store any desired data (e.g., predictedcompression statistics, compressed data, etc.).

The present invention embodiments may employ any number of any type ofuser interface (e.g., Graphical User Interface (GUI), command-line,prompt, etc.) for obtaining or providing information (e.g., predictedcompression statistics, compressed data, etc.), where the interface mayinclude any information arranged in any fashion. The interface mayinclude any number of any types of input or actuation mechanisms (e.g.,buttons, icons, fields, boxes, links, etc.) disposed at any locations toenter/display information and initiate desired actions via any suitableinput devices (e.g., mouse, keyboard, etc.). The interface screens mayinclude any suitable actuators (e.g., links, tabs, etc.) to navigatebetween the screens in any fashion.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particularembodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. Asused herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended toinclude the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicatesotherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises”,“comprising”, “includes”, “including”, “has”, “have”, “having”, “with”and the like, when used in this specification, specify the presence ofstated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/orcomponents, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or moreother features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components,and/or groups thereof.

The corresponding structures, materials, acts, and equivalents of allmeans or step plus function elements in the claims below are intended toinclude any structure, material, or act for performing the function incombination with other claimed elements as specifically claimed. Thedescription of the present invention has been presented for purposes ofillustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive orlimited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications andvariations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the artwithout departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. Theembodiment was chosen and described in order to best explain theprinciples of the invention and the practical application, and to enableothers of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention forvarious embodiments with various modifications as are suited to theparticular use contemplated.

The descriptions of the various embodiments of the present inventionhave been presented for purposes of illustration, but are not intendedto be exhaustive or limited to the embodiments disclosed. Manymodifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skillin the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the describedembodiments. The terminology used herein was chosen to best explain theprinciples of the embodiments, the practical application or technicalimprovement over technologies found in the marketplace, or to enableothers of ordinary skill in the art to understand the embodimentsdisclosed herein.

The present invention may be a system, a method, and/or a computerprogram product. The computer program product may include a computerreadable storage medium (or media) having computer readable programinstructions thereon for causing a processor to carry out aspects of thepresent invention.

The computer readable storage medium can be a tangible device that canretain and store instructions for use by an instruction executiondevice. The computer readable storage medium may be, for example, but isnot limited to, an electronic storage device, a magnetic storage device,an optical storage device, an electromagnetic storage device, asemiconductor storage device, or any suitable combination of theforegoing. A non-exhaustive list of more specific examples of thecomputer readable storage medium includes the following: a portablecomputer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), aread-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROMor Flash memory), a static random access memory (SRAM), a portablecompact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), a digital versatile disk (DVD),a memory stick, a floppy disk, a mechanically encoded device such aspunch-cards or raised structures in a groove having instructionsrecorded thereon, and any suitable combination of the foregoing. Acomputer readable storage medium, as used herein, is not to be construedas being transitory signals per se, such as radio waves or other freelypropagating electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic waves propagatingthrough a waveguide or other transmission media (e.g., light pulsespassing through a fiber-optic cable), or electrical signals transmittedthrough a wire.

Computer readable program instructions described herein can bedownloaded to respective computing/processing devices from a computerreadable storage medium or to an external computer or external storagedevice via a network, for example, the Internet, a local area network, awide area network and/or a wireless network. The network may comprisecopper transmission cables, optical transmission fibers, wirelesstransmission, routers, firewalls, switches, gateway computers and/oredge servers. A network adapter card or network interface in eachcomputing/processing device receives computer readable programinstructions from the network and forwards the computer readable programinstructions for storage in a computer readable storage medium withinthe respective computing/processing device.

Computer readable program instructions for carrying out operations ofthe present invention may be assembler instructions,instruction-set-architecture (ISA) instructions, machine instructions,machine dependent instructions, microcode, firmware instructions,state-setting data, or either source code or object code written in anycombination of one or more programming languages, including an objectoriented programming language such as Smalltalk, C++ or the like, andconventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C”programming language or similar programming languages. The computerreadable program instructions may execute entirely on the user'scomputer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone softwarepackage, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computeror entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario,the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through anytype of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide areanetwork (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer(for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).In some embodiments, electronic circuitry including, for example,programmable logic circuitry, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA), orprogrammable logic arrays (PLA) may execute the computer readableprogram instructions by utilizing state information of the computerreadable program instructions to personalize the electronic circuitry,in order to perform aspects of the present invention.

Aspects of the present invention are described herein with reference toflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus(systems), and computer program products according to embodiments of theinvention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchartillustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in theflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented bycomputer readable program instructions.

These computer readable program instructions may be provided to aprocessor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, orother programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, suchthat the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computeror other programmable data processing apparatus, create means forimplementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks. These computer readable program instructionsmay also be stored in a computer readable storage medium that can directa computer, a programmable data processing apparatus, and/or otherdevices to function in a particular manner, such that the computerreadable storage medium having instructions stored therein comprises anarticle of manufacture including instructions which implement aspects ofthe function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram blockor blocks.

The computer readable program instructions may also be loaded onto acomputer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other deviceto cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer,other programmable apparatus or other device to produce a computerimplemented process, such that the instructions which execute on thecomputer, other programmable apparatus, or other device implement thefunctions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block orblocks.

The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate thearchitecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementationsof systems, methods, and computer program products according to variousembodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in theflowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portionof instructions, which comprises one or more executable instructions forimplementing the specified logical function(s). In some alternativeimplementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of theorder noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in successionmay, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks maysometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon thefunctionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of theblock diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocksin the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implementedby special purpose hardware-based systems that perform the specifiedfunctions or acts or carry out combinations of special purpose hardwareand computer instructions.

1-7. (canceled)
 8. A system for hierarchically compressing datacomprising: one or more processors configured to: create a compressionhierarchy of compression nodes, wherein each compression node isassociated with a compression operation to produce compressed data;determine a path of one or more compression nodes through saidcompression hierarchy, based upon compression statistics, to compressdata; and compress the data by the compression nodes of the path.
 9. Thesystem of claim 8, wherein the one or more processors are configured toselect a path of the compression hierarchy having a measure ofcompression higher than any of the other paths.
 10. The system of claim8, wherein the compression nodes are configured to compress one or moredata types selected from a group consisting of: integer, character anddouble.
 11. The system of claim 8, wherein each compression node isselected from a group consisting of: a bitshaved compression node, adictionary compression node, a run length encoding compression node, acharacter-based compression node and a delta compression node.
 12. Thesystem of claim 8, wherein the one or more processors are configured to:create a run length encoded compression node in the compressionhierarchy of compression nodes; and perform a filtering operation on thedata using the run length encoded compression node, wherein thefiltering operation is performed in part by applying a bitmask to avalues field of the run length encoded compression node.
 13. The systemof claim 8, wherein the one or more processors are configured to: createa run length encoded compression node in the compression hierarchy ofcompression nodes; and perform part of a join operation on the datausing the run length encoded compression node, wherein the joinoperation is performed by applying input data to a values field of therun length encoded compression node and by applying repeat counts to alengths field of the run length encoded compression node.
 14. The systemof claim 8, wherein the one or more processors are configured to: createa dictionary compression node in the compression hierarchy ofcompression nodes; perform a computation on the data using thedictionary compression node, wherein the computation is performed byapplying bitshaved data to the dictionary compression node to generate adictionary having values and keys; and perform the computation for eachgenerated value.
 15. A computer program product for hierarchicallycompressing data comprising a computer readable storage medium havingcomputer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readableprogram code, when executed by a processor, causes the processor to:create a compression hierarchy of compression nodes, wherein eachcompression node is associated with a compression operation to producecompressed data; determine a path of one or more compression nodesthrough said compression hierarchy, based upon compression statistics,to compress data; and compress the data by the compression nodes of thepath.
 16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the computerreadable code is configured to cause the processor to select a path ofthe compression hierarchy having a measure of compression higher thanany of the other paths.
 17. The computer program product of claim 15,wherein each compression node is selected from a group consisting of: abitshaved compression node, a dictionary compression node, a run lengthencoding compression node, a character-based compression node and adelta compression node.
 18. The computer program product of claim 15,wherein the computer readable code is configured to cause the processorto: create a run length encoded compression node in the compressionhierarchy of compression nodes; and perform a filtering operation on thedata using the run length encoded compression node, wherein thefiltering operation is performed in part by applying a bitmask to avalues field of the run length encoded compression node.
 19. Thecomputer program product of claim 15, wherein the computer readable codeis configured to cause the processor to: create a run length encodedcompression node in the compression hierarchy of compression nodes; andperform part of a join operation on the data using the run lengthencoded compression node, wherein the join operation is performed byapplying input data to a values field of the run length encodedcompression node and by applying repeat counts to a lengths field of therun length encoded compression node.
 20. The computer program product ofclaim 15, wherein the computer readable code is configured to cause theprocessor to: create a dictionary compression node in the compressionhierarchy of compression nodes; perform a computation on the data usingthe dictionary compression node, wherein the computation is performed byapplying bitshaved data to the dictionary compression node to generate adictionary having values and keys; and perform the computation for eachgenerated value.